1955 Drexel Dining Room Set

While most of our buying, selling, and collecting is either clothing or smaller home décor items, we also love furniture of all shapes and sizes.  Our home was built in 1946 and we lean towards the 1960s as far as décor goes, although Arlo is truly the mid-mod lover – I have a soft spot for the late 1800s, so we do have some earlier pieces.  Our bedroom set is a 1963 Heywood Wakefield set – the Fascination group, in Topaz – and we have a Heywake dining room table and chairs as well.

We live in a part of the country that, for whatever reason, hasn’t quite caught on to the midcentury modern trend, so occasionally we find ourselves in the position of being the only folks who recognize the beauty of certain pieces. We see a lot of fantastic furniture, and we simply don’t have room for all of it. This happened to us recently when we had to leave a Heywood Wakefield Kohinoor bedroom set behind.  And we sadly passed on some great Lane tables the other weekend, too.

But sometimes, we see things we just can’t pass up.  I mentioned previously how much we love stories – and sometimes the story is so good, we wind up with some extra items in the back of the truck.  That’s what happened recently with this fantastic Drexel dining room set.  We visited a house that was being gutted and remodeled for sale.  It was a shame, because it was a classic 1950s suburban home, and we shudder to think how it was going to be modernized.  The kitchen was sublime!  Some of the original furniture was left, and we struck up a conversation with the past owner’s children about the house and furniture.  We were told this Drexel set had been purchased new when their parents married in 1955, and had never been moved.  Their daughter remembered sitting under the table as a small child, playing.

This set is the New Today’s Living line, which we have seen attributed to Milo Baughman. This line was produced in 1955, which, as far as we can tell, is when Baughman was working for the company.  We managed to find some original ad copy, and in Drexel’s original publicity for the line they describe it as having “light, smart beauty” and being “elm with spice finishes”.  We just know we saw it, we liked it, and we had to take it home.

This set includes an extension dining room table with two leaves, 6 chairs (4 mates and 2 captain’s chairs), a sideboard, and a china cabinet.  All pieces are in wonderful condition for their age, and are really good examples of midcentury style.  However, once we got it home it quickly became clear that we just weren’t going to have room to display it or store it – so we’re going to have to find it a new owner.  We live in Pittsburgh, and this would be pickup only, but if you’re interested in this beautiful set please contact us and make us an offer.  We want to see it find a good home, it’s such a lovely set with such a great story.  See the set here on eBay!